How I use public transit in North Carolina (and what ‘transit stigma’ is)

I’ve shared on this blog and my other platforms what my use of public transit looks like. However, I thought it was time to detail my daily reliance on the bus and train to get around while also describing what ‘transit stigma’ is and how it impacts the quality of transit systems across the country.

Let’s start with the bus– I use GoDurham and GoTriangle services to travel around the city and region respectively. Although both systems (GoDurham is a subsidiary of the GoTriangle transit conglomerate) run reliably in light of recent hires and route restorations and are fare-free for at least the next year, buses only run once every half hour. This tight schedule doesn’t allow for much flexibility, so I make sure to track the buses and their departure times diligently through the Google Maps transit feature. The feature works more effectively on smartphones, but I’ve copied below screenshots from my laptop’s Google Maps. You can easily select your desired stop to see what buses are departing/arriving when.

I’m very fortunate that I live in one of the better corridors for bus service in Durham. The route I frequent the most stops two blocks from my residence and runs more frequently than most routes in town. From there I’m a short walk from Durham Station where I can catch all of GoDurham’s routes along with express routes to nearby Raleigh and Chapel Hill.

Most of the Triangle’s regional routes transfer at the Regional Transit Center near Research Triangle Park (RTP). I use this transfer station to catch buses to either Cary for work or the airport with the Regional Transit Center-RDU Airport shuttle. The latter pairs the convenience of no cost with the inconvenience of a lengthy transfer and limited run times. This means that a bus ride from downtown Durham to the airport takes roughly 40 minutes, only runs once every half hour, and doesn’t account for early-morning or late-evening flights.

As for the train– I primarily use Amtrak’s services to travel anywhere from Charlotte to Washington, DC and anywhere in between. Riding Amtrak is relatively convenient for me due to my proximity to Durham’s station. However, Charlotte’s station is currently in a part of town that isn’t accessible to Uptown or other modes of transit and run times for the train lag behind driving times. I only take the train to Charlotte if someone’s picking me up from the station or if I plan on driving back to Durham with a friend. Trips north of Raleigh, such as to the DC area to visit family, also take longer than driving and are limited to only two trains a day.

Train trips within North Carolina are most useful if I’m traveling to events in any other city along the regional Piedmont line, which runs several times a day from Charlotte to Raleigh with intermediate stops across the central part of the state. Because of the frequency with which I take the train, I have an Amtrak credit card that helps me accrue points for every trip I take that go towards free train tickets. I’d highly recommend this service for anyone who finds themselves riding the train often.

Overall, my experience with transit in North Carolina has been decent enough to where I can rely on it for my everyday and weekend travels. I’ve had to be flexible and suffer the occasional missed train or bus that never arrives, which is partially why the vast majority of people I know in Durham simply prefer to drive to their destination. Cars are certainly king in North Carolina despite how awfully expensive they can be. It’s this level of cost that denotes a certain status in our society, dividing those who can afford car ownership from those who cannot and rely on transit to get around town.

Enter transit stigma– the idea that relying on transit in the vast majority of the United States is reserved only for the most marginalized of communities. I’ve experienced only a fraction of this stigma given that my reliance on transit is a personal choice. For example, I’ll receive the occasional surprised reaction from co-workers or friends that I don’t own a car or that I ride the bus to get to most of my destinations because of their perception of transit as a substandard service they’d never dare use. The questions and surrounding stigma lead me to not advertise in the moment that I’m taking transit to or from my destination due to the anticipated reaction of my peers.

Transit stigma has terrible repercussions on bus riders. When a service is viewed as substandard, it is used less and therefore receives less funding and attention. This dearth in resources available to transit systems has an inequitable impact on our society– in my conversations with officials from GoTriangle, I’ve learned that the vast majority of bus riders in the region are non-white and are of a lower socioeconomic status. Those who can afford a car in this area will easily decide to buy one given that public transit is viewed as a lower-class amenity. It’s a vicious feedback loop that clogs our roads and disadvantages marginalized communities that rely on GoTriangle’s services.

This is not to say that my peers who refuse to take transit are part of the problem. For many people I know, they simply don’t live near any forms of public transit or prefer the convenience of their car for day-to-day travel, which I don’t blame them for one bit. My blog has never been about shaming those who drive or don’t utilize pedestrian or transit infrastructure, but instead about discussing the systems in place that stigmatize deviation from the norm of environmentally and financially harmful car dependency. Until our elected officials and others in positions of higher status are relying on the very transit services they continue to undervalue, public transit in most of the United States won’t be able to compete with car travel.

In the coming months, I hope to discuss how public transit can be used in our everyday lives to cut our use of and reliance on cars and show how it provides a promising path forward as we continue to hurdle towards crisis in our personal finances, city roads, and global climate.